This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Welcome to the world's leading forum on Multiple Sclerosis research, support, and knowledge. For over 10 years, This is MS has provided an unbiased community dedicated to Multiple Sclerosis patients, caregivers, and affected loved ones.

hwebb wrote:I still wonder how Swank's patients were able to achieve such a low relapse rate, and minimal progression of disability. Were his observations real or skewed by bias? Some of his original patients must still be about.

The diet was most effective when started just after the onset of MS. Also, commitment to the diet and daily rest are decisive factors. I do believe that a combination of Swank diet and vitamin D, along with CCSVI treatment (if necessary) is the way to go to stop, and even reverse MS.

Advertisement

I would like to add daily stretching and excercises every other day, and even meditation.
For me the worst trigger are stress. Telephonecalls, stupid people, ice hockey horrormovies everything that starts my adrenalinshots.

It has become slightly better after treatment but I am still very sensitive to stress.

My ms started after a huge exhausted syndrom, thats why I think my biggest problem is due to stress.

There is not so much about the stressfactor in ms on TIMS.

I can understand if you picture me as a freak sitting on the floor eating carrots. Not answering telephonecalls, refusing television and hardcore.

I can relate to your comment about stress exacerbating symptoms. Every time I got stressed, my symptoms would surge. This made sense to me when i saw my problem vein (first in the Doppler ultrasound and MRV...then during the venogram). So very narrow, it's easy to imagine why even the slightest vasoconstriction (caused by stress) would temporarily completely block my jugular. I believe this is why some MSers are strongly impacted by stress, yet others aren't.

I found this article today and it tells me that Swank was one of those who was facing the right direction in his research.
If this has already been published here on this forum - Excuse me for that/Lelo

Cheer stated: "I hate to say it, but I think diet and lifestyle can only overcome so much...."

It seems to me that the effort towards stress reduction and dietary changes are not about 'overcoming'..unless you believe that a 'cure' is the only way to heal. I would like as much as any one of us not to have the relapse symptoms of MS, and if the Liberation can free me of the debilitating symptoms and progression of MS, I still want it to happen in a body that has not been destroyed by stress and poor dietary choices (or drugs).

And if I were granted that beauty I would not reverse one of the dietary changes made, nor revert back to stressful living. Hence the attempt to heal this ravaged body. I can 'wait' (for Liberation) but I can 'see' now. The 'wait and see' is a dangerous place to sit for it can easily lead us to feeling defeated by an 'incurable' disease and feeling stuck and helpless, feeling that nothing we do can help. And this is a lie.

What I am suggesting is that, for myself anyhow, (and there is much documented by others to report the benefits of such changes) the changes made with the onset of MS in terms of diet and reducing stress, which took an enormous effort of 'cleaning' up my life, have made an incredible difference in the 'quality' of my life, in spite of this disease. 'Health' is not only about a 'cure' or getting blood to flow freely again in our necks. I have more vital energy than almost everyone I know and yet I have trouble walking for more than a quarter mile. I have a debilitating disease but hardly ever suffer from a common cold.

The use of drugs that I have avoided have spared my organs and my immune system such decline that if blood did start to flow properly it is my hope that my body will still be the foundation of strength that I want and need it to be so I can do everything I want to do in this lifetime.

I truly believe that when I opted to make radical dietary changes as a way to manage MS, I think I also saved myself many other physical ailments. This is my way, and I understand every one of us with this disease must make choices in how to deal with this. Clearly congenital malformed veins was not our choice, but where we can choose, so to we may find tremendous benefit and personal power.

Thank you very much for those words. It is not so easy to express what you want, when English is not your language.
I also did get a little bit disappointed on those comments, slightly arrogant, about the nutritious strategies, that saved my life.
I belong to those who was diagnosed primary progress and after One year on diet my neuro told me it might be a missdiagnosis.
I have had control on my ms for almost three years now and life before ms is a dark black hole and I will never ever change this direction.

Lelo wrote:I also did get a little bit disappointed on those comments, slightly arrogant, about the nutritious strategies, that saved my life. I belong to those who was diagnosed primary progress and after One year on diet my neuro told me it might be a missdiagnosis. I have had control on my ms for almost three years now and life before ms is a dark black hole and I will never ever change this direction.

Not meant to be arrogant--apologies. Every MS patient is different. You are your own story. Jeff was 45 when diagnosed, and he was further down the MS road. The lifestyle changes kept him stable for 2 years, but the truth of his malformed veins was unavoidable. I wish you continued health and wholeness-
cheer

Yes, nutrition! One of my main interests. My wife have been on best-bet-diet about tree yrs now, and I truly believe it has helped her so much. At the moment she has been (almost) symptom free, she is exercising and life has been quite normal for last 2 yrs. Of course her veins has get fixed, but before that nutrition is our medicine. She don't have any MS drugs.

We need to take the comments about diet in the right perspective.
CCSVI is more closer to real solution than diet approach.

In near future, if we find that the narrowing of veins is due to a defective gene as a result of some mutation, and if we find way to undo it then that would become standard care method and liberation procedure might go into background (or for people who cannot afford gene therapy, for example)

Its all relative ....

If diet provided acceptable relief, we would not find some many people running behind CCSVI. That said, the thing I specifically like about diet is that it is good not just for MS but generally shields from other avoidable diseases ...

I don´t know but in my mind it feels like I would have had more improvement from my liberation procedure if the diet already had given it to me. It is still only five weeks since my "liberation" and for sure I have some improvement. Like many others, my mind is clearer and I can deal with impressions and almost feel some creativity, and have started up some small designproject for the first time in 6-7 years. But again, to compare with the improvement I experienced after 5 weeks with striktly following BBD, it was almost of religious dimension.
I layed down six hours per day and was not able to stand more than 10 minutes and I stole my babies nappies and had totally lost my dignity. After two and a half year,following the diet
I can take dogwalks 2 km, and have total control of my metabolic system, and were it ends????

sbr487 stated: "If diet provided acceptable relief, we would not find some many people running behind CCSVI."

That is not necessarily true, at all.

First, it seems that from reading this thread and others (and in many other places, like Ann Boroch's wonderful book 'Healing MS') that many DO testify to the relief that dietary changes provide (in combination with removal of toxins, stress, staying as active as possible etc)...not like it's going to 'fix' MS...so I guess it depends what is 'acceptable relief', on what your needs are for 'wellness', which is what we're talking about here, in the diet realm, not eradicating MS. (Although we do try!) The talk around natural medicine has always been around how to better 'manage' our varying situations.
Even Dr Swank never claimed a 'cure' with his dietary guidelines. But he must have been a damn good neurologist, which equals a great man in my mind, to open his trained medical mind to natural management!

There are some that are desperate for Liberation, and for good reason. But it seems to me that whether or not you have found relief with diet, you would STILL run behind CCSVI, like me and many others, and Lelo who has had the procedure! Who wouldn't want to see a breakthrough in medicine on this scale that is going to affect us all, diet or no diet; who among us wouldn't want to try for the promise of greater relief? I mean, my brain surely wants more oxygen from blood flow... and at the same time my muscles still shout out for greater strength, my spirit and nerves yearn for tranquility, and my organs still ask for balance.

It is not yet totally clear the relationship of CCSVI to MS, in terms of the research that has yet to be done on the vascular system of those of us with MS. Hence some of us are keeping our bases covered and are saying that it is 'wellness' that matters, a part of which would be a 'cure' (or an incredible breakthrough like CCSVI is turning out to be) or anything that would enhance the quality of life.

This point of view puts a tremendous onus on the individual and therein lies the greatest challenge, I think. When one is ill, one feels utterly defeated. It's not easy to press on in the face of such adversity. But frankly, I do not see a choice in the matter. I want 'life' in all its implications, disease or no disease. Let us hope it is NO disease.

I came across an interview which Dr John McDougall did with Dr Swank back in 1998. It's worth reading to remind ourselves of the reasoning behind Swank's proposed diet. I wish he were alive today to see CCSVI treatment unfoold around the world. He was definitely ahead of his time:

Dr John McDougall: Some of your early work showed the effects of fat on circulation.

Swank: We found a heavy-fat diet caused changes in circulation. After a typical, high-fat American meal red blood cells become very sticky and would bind to one another. About three hours after a meal they aggregated together to form clumps. And these clumps are large enough and tough enough so they can obstruct circulation in small capillaries throughout the body. We have also seen these changes in animals after feeding them a high-fat diet, and we also found a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier in these animals. I think this kind of injury results in the perivascular lesions (damage around blood vessels classically seen in MS) that are typical of MS.

This is excellent. We must continue to look at diet and CCSVI, I think. I know someone posted a thread on saturated fat and blood viscosity. Not too many seem interested in thread, or this research, but Swank was no ding-dong. And it his study was over a 35yr period; no small potatoes for a clinical trial. He did his research and then tested his theories, and drew serious conclusions. THIS is science. That he looked to diet is remarkable given we have so much to learn about natural healing, blocked veins or not.
Great find.

I believe even after Swank published his findings of 35 years research, he continued to follow his patients. He followed them for around 50 years. This level of follow up is certainly not the norm for pharmaceutical trials. I really believe that if your neurologist doesn't tell you about the Swank diet, and provide coaching to follow it - they are medically negligent. Same with the MS Societies. The diet has no side-effects, and so many positives can result (better circulation, better heart heath, better weight management). If you have analysis showing you have compromised veins ...you definitely need to follow the Swank diet.

Who is online

This site does not offer, or claim to offer, medical, legal, or professional advice.
All treatment decisions should always be made with the full knowledge of your physicians.
This is MS does not create, endorse, or republish any content.
All postings are the responsibility of the poster. All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owners. All users must respect our rules for intellectual property rights.